


perihelion

by lethean



Series: orbit [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Season/Series 08, missing moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 15:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17025624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lethean/pseuds/lethean
Summary: Shiro hadn’t visited him and wouldn’t visit him. All the signs were there. ‘Keith’ had been replaced by ‘Paladins.’ The hand on his shoulder replaced by distance. The realization came with startling clarity: sometime after Shiro had woken up in a clone’s body, Keith had lost him.Shiro visits Keith in the hospital. All is not well. But it's better.





	perihelion

Keith still felt Zethrid’s hands around his neck.

He closed his eyes and the cruel, furious set of her expression stared into him, unbending, unforgiving, tattooed on the back of his eyelids. Even the bright lights of the room he’d been confined to—only for a short while, they said, leaving him there for hours—couldn’t chase the nightmare away.

The slow whirr of the ship filled Keith’s ears; it moved around him, still, despite the way time seemed to have stopped the moment the doors swished closed behind him. He hadn’t moved at all since the doctor left him to rest and Lance had stopped bugging him—a welcome distraction, despite the obvious worry marking his face.

Now all Keith could do was wait, shoulders bent, feet hanging off the side of the hard bed. Anticipation and disappointment both warred for domination within him. Lance, Pidge, Hunk, Allura, Coran, and even Veronica and Griffin, had all visited him at some point or another; and Keith had been so overcome by a feeling he had never experienced before he could barely keep the tears locked up.

Keith had been in the hospital, just like this, more times than he could count throughout his life. No one had ever visited him before.

No one, that was, except for Shiro.

And Shiro hadn’t visited him.

Keith was alone.

Many plausible excuses could explain Shiro’s absence. He was busy, had to finish everything up so he could visit Keith and be under no time limit. Most of those excuses were crushed like ants under the heel that was Keith’s fear.

Fear that, finally, Keith had driven Shiro away for good. It was a thick, dark sensation that filled his stomach and his lungs like tar or cement or any other thick almost-liquid that he could imagine drowning in. He’d drowned in volcanic air down on that planet and he drowned in his own terror now, and for all that he knew he was out of danger, the latter felt more like certain death.

Shiro hadn’t visited him and wouldn’t visit him. All the signs were there. ‘Keith’ had been replaced by ‘Paladins.’ The hand on his shoulder replaced by distance. The realization came with startling clarity: sometime after Shiro had woken up in a clone’s body, Keith had lost him.

Perhaps Shiro had clung to him because they were alone; they had been two friends surrounded by mostly strangers who pushed and prodded at what was too delicate for touch. But they were far from alone, now. Shiro had all of Atlas to replace anything Keith had ever been to him.

And Keith could not replace his whole heart even if he wanted to.

He took a shuddering breath, the air not enough to soothe his smothered throat or his burning lungs.

Keith hadn’t cried in years, but knew if he did, he would never stop.

The door swished open, and Keith’s head snapped up to look, meeting disappointment. Acxa stood in the doorway, like a deer caught in headlights, discomfort obvious. She cleared her throat and took two hesitant steps inside.

“I wanted to ask for the state of your condition.”

Keith almost snorted despite himself.

“My condition is satisfactory,” he replied instead.

Acxa nodded, as if pleased. “That is good.”

She fell silent, eyes flickering once to the bruises starting to form on his neck, and Keith had no idea what more to say, so he stayed silent, too. Acxa reminded Keith of himself, after he had just regained Shiro again and couldn’t balance relief and a year of pain on the same scale. Connecting with others had seemed an insurmountable task, and sometimes it still did.

A lot of Acxa was a complete unknown to Keith, but her sincerity rang louder than a church bell and he couldn’t fault her for mistakes he knew he might have committed himself, had their situations been switched.

It wasn’t Acxa’s fault her Shiro had been Lotor.

“How’s Zethrid?” Keith asked once the silence had stretched the limits of what even he could call comfortable.

“Contained, safely, with the other prisoners,” Acxa responded automatically, like she was answering a barked command.

They could work on that. God knew how terrible Keith had been at talking, once. Some days it didn’t feel like he’d improved since then.

“Thank you for saving my life, Acxa,” Keith said before silence could claim the air again.

She started, a twitch of her head almost imperceptible.

“I only did what I should have done. For you,” she said, “and for Zethrid.”

“I appreciate it, anyway.”

Acxa hesitated for a moment, lips parted slightly, before speaking again. “You gave me a chance at a time when you by all rights should not have. You will always have my deepest gratitude, and I will spend the rest of my life repaying you for it.”

Keith couldn’t quite tell if her cheeks had flushed a darker purple, but she bowed her head in a nod and left quickly after.

Though Acxa’s visit couldn’t chase away his disappointment fully—and hadn’t even touched his fear—his mind had strayed from thoughts of Shiro to thoughts of other things that didn’t hurt quite as much. He thought of the ashy air that filled his lungs as he fought Zethrid, limbs slower and heavier than he could recognize in himself; the trap that caught them so easily, rendered their Lions helpless, and their Paladins more so.

Keith hadn’t felt so trapped since he hid in the closet in his first foster home, knife gone and father gone and so alone no tears would fall even if he begged them to.    

That image would finally be replaced, now. Hands around his neck, lungs burning for want of air, and Shiro standing right there, so close he could see orange light reflecting in his eyes, staring at him but doing nothing.

Letting him die.

He exhaled sharply; emptied all the air from his lungs until they ached and he needed to breathe so badly Shiro’s face was erased from his retinas.

Acxa had come. Not Shiro. Lance had come. Not Shiro.

If someone had told Keith that a few months before, he would have laughed.

The door swished open again and he didn’t bother looking up from his hands. Confirming his disappointment would bring him no joy.

Whoever it was said nothing, though Keith could sense someone’s presence, and he hadn’t heard the door close again, which meant the person blocked its path.

“Keith.”

Keith’s heart stopped beating. His eyes were pulled towards the source of the sound like they were pulled by gravity and betrayed him so utterly he wanted to scream.

Because Shiro stood right there, but Keith knew that couldn’t be possible, that his mind was playing a trick on him, urged on by loneliness and lack of sleep. If he blinked, looked away, Shiro would disappear, and he would find a doctor in his stead, or perhaps no one at all.

“Keith,” the hallucination of Shiro said again, and Keith couldn’t help but savor the weight of it, real or not.

“Are you—how is—the doctor said—” Shiro took a deep breath, gaze flickering to Keith’s throats and the bruises Keith could feel but hadn’t seen yet, and he winced. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay,” Keith said, response automatic, and hated the rasp in his voice that gave away how close he’d been to suffocating.

Shiro’s hair was in a disarray, and his uniform not quite as pristine as it always was, and Keith began doubting his hallucination theory.

“Are you sure?” Shiro asked, exhaustion lined at the corners of his eyes and between his eyebrows.

He came into the room properly, and the door swished shut behind him, a soft draft of air swirling through the silver strands of his hair.

“I’m fine, Shiro,” Keith reassured, heart caught between overpowering relief and dread. “Nothing permanently damaged.”

It was Shiro. It _was_ Shiro. He came after all.

The click of his boots on the metal floor; the bob of his adam’s apple when he swallowed; the hair matted to his forehead like he hadn’t had the time to wash after coming back from the planet. Keith’s mind would have conjured Shiro at his best.

Still, being in Shiro’s presence felt like all the sun’s rays shone on him. A flush of heat traveled through him.

“Keith,” Shiro said again, and this time it came out as a sigh.

If Keith had to, he would have categorized it as a sigh of relief.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Keith said, words slipping out before he could stop them.

Shiro flinched.

Keith couldn’t quite make himself feel bad.

“I, uh,” Shiro began, and licked his lips. “I had to do some things, and I wanted to make sure you had some time to rest, and I—”

He shook his head and stopped speaking, eyes fastened anywhere but Keith’s face. He waited, the excuses mirrors of what Keith had thought earlier, and couldn’t quite keep his disappointment at bay. And yet the explanation satisfied no part of him.

He wanted more.

“I didn’t do anything,” Shiro whispered finally. “I couldn’t do anything.”

“What?” Keith asked; needed to know what Shiro meant more than he needed oxygen.

“When she almost—it was like every part of me froze. She was killing you and I couldn’t stop it and I kept screaming at my legs to move but they wouldn’t and then it was over and god, Keith—”

Shiro’s voice hitched and he bent his head down so Keith couldn’t see his expression.

"You could have died." Shiro sounded shattered in a way he'd never heard before.

Oh.

Neither of them said anything. Keith’s thoughts were going into overdrive; he couldn’t formulate a single thing he could tell Shiro that would make him feel better. His tongue felt leaden, and he wanted so badly to reach out and hold Shiro until everything was right in the world.

It wasn’t worth it. Keith wanted to know Shiro cared, but it wasn’t worth it, seeing him like that. Nothing was worth Shiro’s pain.

And whatever Keith wanted to do, he wasn’t sure it would be welcome. Shiro stood just inside the door, a vast expanse of space separated them. He was upset; he wasn’t close. And he did nothing to diminish the distance. Something had driven them apart, and Keith didn’t know what.

“It’s okay,” Keith told him, because maybe that was what he needed to hear.

Shiro looked up, eyes catching on the scar on Keith’s cheek, like they always did, then the bruises and shook his head.

“No, it isn’t, Keith. I’m so sorry.”

“I—” Keith licked his lips. “It matters more to me that you tried.”

All he could give as reassurance was a smile that bordered on uncertain, but somehow the air between them warmed a little, and the tar that filled his stomach lost some of its density.

Shiro stayed until the doctor came back and said Keith could leave, walked him back to his room with a hand hovering on his arm, gaze lingering and mouth half-open like he wanted to speak but couldn’t. Keith memorized that expression, tucked it deep inside where he could keep it forever. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling he might never see it again.

Keith watched him walk away, and didn’t feel as heavy anymore.

If Shiro still cared, it _was_ okay. Keith could live with that. He would.

Even if what he held onto was just a sliver of Shiro’s heart, when he had given Shiro all of himself long ago.

**Author's Note:**

> This is in the same universe as apogee. There were so many missing moments and missed opportunities in s8. Alas, we could have had Shiro saving Keith ... or at least, they could have actually talked to each other ...  
> Say hi on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/delethean)


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